


Fix It

by hatstand



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, adorable people being adorable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-13 01:30:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5689393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hatstand/pseuds/hatstand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poe's broken. He thinks he knows who can fix it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fix It

**Author's Note:**

> Obligatory post-Ren-fallout Rey-meets-Poe. I am tickled by the whole 'he called me buddy what does that mean' cult of Poe, and the notion of Rey obliviously having the same effect on basically everyone, and neither of those things being at all helpful to either of them at this point and I just want them all to be ok please yes thank you.

 

Poe bounced on his toes outside the dull metal door, wiped his palms on his pants, and tugged at his uncomfortable new jacket.

Ridiculous. He was being ridiculous, and it was ridiculous to come here, and more ridiculous to be nervous about coming here because nervous wasn’t in his wheelhouse, wasn’t him at all, like nightmares and night sweats and voices in his head and -

The metal door slid open with a hum.

‘Oh!’ Rey’s eyes were wide and bright. And unmistakeably looking over his shoulder, for the person she assumed would have brought him along.

It wasn’t as if Finn hadn’t offered, the instant he was back on his feet. And Poe had wanted to say yes, because he enjoyed the dopey smile on Finn’s face every time he said her name, and he was pretty sure it would be twice as big if he got to say it with her actually in the room; wanted nothing more than to kick back and watch the two of them babble like a pair of kids - over how soft the beds were; how the canteen served blue caffina, sweet and hot; how sometimes the sky out here just flat-out _rained_ _down water_. Just to kick back, and smile.

Only lately he was also sort of terrified all the time.

And tired enough he thought he might fall down.

And kicking back and smiling was what he’d been pretending to do for days and he was honestly so done.

He needed help, and he couldn’t ask it of Finn.

Rey’s open O of a mouth settled into an uncomplicated smile of delight, and suddenly he wasn’t sure he could ask it of her either.

*

He was here, right here, at her door, her own door! Poe Dameron. Him! She’d read about him. There were flight logs stored in the main base computer (Leia had let her in to read up on her history; said it was shocking, all those gaps, parents today, forgetting to do the work that matters), and his own file (nothing intrusive, just data: he’d been the test pilot for the new seaspeeder and still had the speed record over the Undanna Lagoon; sixteen battle tours; his face was on the flight manual for all Resistance battlecraft, the actual manual, his actual face!) and of course there was the talk on the base. She loved the talk on the base. She went to the mess and sat in a corner with one roll - though you could take two, one time she’d put an extra one in her pocket, you could probably take four though she hadn’t seen anyone do it yet - and made it last hours, just to listen.

And there was Finn of course, who rarely talked about anything else, and always with a big daft smile across his face as he told the same story.

Poe Dameron, the best pilot in the Resistance. Poe who had given Finn a name and his trust. Poe who had risked everything to save the map to Luke Skywalker. If she hadn’t seen him she would’ve thought he was a story.

And now here he was! At her own door! Looking handsome and sweetly ruffled to put her at ease. (He was so considerate. Everyone said so.)

‘Hey, I’m sorry to just call by, we don’t have an appointment - I’m Poe, Poe Dameron, we haven’t exactly been introduced but I wanted... I wondered if I - ’

‘Poe! I’ve heard so much about you! From Finn - and Leia, and - I’ve wanted to talk to you actually, because they all say you’re the _best_ pilot, and, well, I’d really love to fly an x-wing but I know the rotor control is unique and I’ve never flown with an astromech doing the navigation and the I know Resistance doesn’t have training vehicles to spare, just the real thing and I know you’re all on flight readiness until we get the next all clear, and you have new recruits arriving, and I’m just a visitor anyway and I might have to leave again at any moment, but I thought, until then, I mean Finn said I ought to ask, and actually looking at the specs in the manual I’m pretty sure if you rerouted the navicom through the secondaries then the droids could sit right in the cockpit, which I think would mean...’

Poe’s eyes had shuttered, and he leaned against the doorframe, breathing deeply, as if he might be...bored? or sleepy? or maybe actually asleep?

She was talking too much. She kept doing that, now there were people to talk to. She stopped. Smiled, hopeful.

‘Oh! I’m Rey. I should’ve said that first.’

After a slow series of blinks, Poe shook his head, alert again and focusing all his smile on her. ‘It’s good to meet you, Rey, who should’ve said that first. And I would _love_ to teach you to fly an x-wing - though from what I hear I don’t know that you need it. Any time, I’m yours.’

It was a bit dazzling. Him. He was a bit dazzling. There seemed to be something sort of magical about his face that made you look at it. No wonder Finn had that smile. And BB-8 - well, it wouldn’t love just anyone.

‘But, first? There’s something I think you might be able to help _me_ with. Maybe we can trade?’

‘Of course! Anything. Come in.’

She stepped back, beckoning him inside.

Poe hesitated, gripping the door frame. The smile was gone again and suddenly he didn’t look like Poe Dameron, best pilot in the Resistance. He didn’t look like a man who could make you laugh or follow him into battle. He looked as if he had stared into a dark place inside himself, the darkest place inside anyone, and not quite found his way back.

She took his arm, a little awkwardly, and led him into a chair as the door hummed shut behind them.

*

Well, crap, this was embarrassing. It was bad enough walking around the base with everyone expecting him to be Chipper McSparklepants over the Starkiller, but he could phone that in. They saw what they wanted. If he seemed out of sorts, they chalked it up to lost friends and concern for the General - and it wasn’t like that wasn’t true. All he needed to do lately was sit by in appropriate silence while Finn told everyone he was awesome. (Finn told everyone Finn was awesome too, increasingly. Poe liked that. Healthy self-respect. The kid was entitled.)

But Rey was looking at him with that smile again, pure light, asking him about what the T-70 felt like to handle as if nothing cruel or cold or just plain wrong had ever crossed her way.

Which was bull, he knew, would even if he hadn’t seen Jakku. The way she drew him a chair, seating herself with her back to a wall. The pride he could see she took in the tiny windowless cell: basic kitchen, folding bunk, all spotless. Her gear in a bundle, ready to bolt. Every inch of her was prepped for disaster but her face. She was beaming, giddy, telling some tale of salvaging the motors from a burnt-out R4, drawing patterns in the sand.

‘I was sad, first off, because there wasn’t enough left to find out anything about it, who it used to be. But in the end it was so beautiful. Just these two legs, twisting through the dunes, leaving this track. Curves, lines. I drew faces, and words. It did my name over and over. And I drew an ocean once, though I’ve never seen one. With an island in the middle. Sometimes I just shut my eyes and moved the controls, to see what would happen. Those made the _best_ patterns.’

He couldn’t fathom it. No family; no friends. No one to take care of you. And she still got it; still knew those were things worth wanting. No wonder she’d taken in BB-8. He felt a touch better about abandoning his little buddy.

‘Sounds spectacular. Bet you had quite the audience.’

Rey shook her head, matter-of-fact. ‘Just me. Then I got hungry, so I sold the legs to Plutt.’

She  shook out a portion of crumbly compressed protein, shovelling it into her mouth, then poured out a cup of coolmilk from the beaker on the table and drank deeply. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve.

He didn’t mean to stare. But she swallowed, then flushed, and fetched another cup, a crinkle of angry dismay appearing between her brows.

‘I’m not used to sharing.’

It sounded like an accusation and  the way she slapped the cup down made him feel like some pampered prince, as if life on a Resistance base was fancy.

‘Please, it’s fine, I’m fine - ’ Poe said, too late, as she filled the cup, and slid it across the table, and he tried to lift it to his lips but the tremor in his hand kicked in and he set it back down as fast as he dared, spilling just a little, making it all worse.

Best pilot in the Resistance and he couldn’t even hold a cup.

‘Well look at that,’ he said fast, grinning, lips stretched over his teeth and his eyes lowered. ‘Thing you need to learn about pilots: guaranteed to show up uninvited and then trash the place. Allow me.’

He jumped up to fetch a cloth from the small kitchen; told a story about a deckhand on a freighter who found out a plate of hot backla on the console and a jump to hyperspace don’t mix; about those sand swamps on Jakku, huh! and how his new jacket _was_ totally sharp thank you; and when was Ackbar going to open up his damn jacuzzi to the whole crew when everyone knew that was why he’d demanded quarters right near the reservoir, come on.

‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

And there it was, the question, and he wasn’t, he really wasn’t.

*

Poe was a hero; she knew he wouldn’t lie.

‘No,’ he said, frowning as the word came out as if it was new. ‘You?’

Yes! Rey thought, at once. Yes, I have a roof above my head and food in my belly and water for the morning. Yes, I am safe. Yes, I am not alone. But no, I am not where I should be. No, I don’t know if there is a place I should be. No, I can’t sleep either.

Luke had come back, she’d brought him back, and she’d thought that would make it all somehow make sense. The Force. Whatever it was; whatever her place in it was. But he’d disappeared again, into hiding, and she knew why - she’d felt it like hands reaching towards him, clutching, his presence announcing itself like a bomb the moment he saw Leia - and the General had sent him away before their skeleton fleet was even more compromised. Rey was supposed to go and join him, when they’d decided it was safe. To train. To learn whatever this was.

But here there was that roof over her head, and food in her belly. And Finn.

Poe was watching and waiting for an answer, and she didn’t know how to make all that into a yes or a no, so instead she tilted her head; shifted one shoulder in a shrug. But she saw his jaw stiffen and his eyes close and that wasn’t fair, or kind.

She put her small freckled hand on his bigger brown one, and felt something shift in her chest as his fingers closed tightly around hers.

‘You said there was something I could do to help?’

‘I need - ’ Poe began, then shook his head. ‘Finn told me, on the Starkiller, when they took you...’ He sat straighter; took her other hand in his as he spoke, determined, as if it was easier now there was a target to aim at. ‘I was interrogated, before. Same chair as you, sounds like.’

She’d told Finn what happened - in amazement, and wonder, at her escape. She assumed Poe would’ve done the same. But she guessed neither of them had told him all of it.

You couldn’t. Finn was so full of life and joy and hope for the future. And this - wasn’t. This was just more horribleness, from the horribleness he’d come from, and she didn’t think anyone would want to be reminded of that. But Poe seemed to need to go back to it, and she understood that.

‘I’m sorry. I know - ’ She blinked rapidly. ‘I was - very afraid. And it hurt. He hurt me.’

She felt sick. If she let her eyes close now she’d be back there, like she was at night in new dreams she couldn’t wake up from quick enough. It was barely a beginning. But Poe nodded, seeming to take reassurance from her words.

‘I couldn’t fight it,’ he said, his voice dropping low and quiet. ‘I mean - the troopers gave me a hard time, roughed me up a little. I can take that. We’re _trained_ to take that. They asked me to give up the map and I held on, bit down, got through it.’

‘I’m sure you did!’ said Rey firmly, taking his other hand. ‘I’m sure you were brilliant. And very strong. And very brave.’

Of course he was.

‘But with him - Kylo Ren - he...’ He frowned at the memory. ‘He barely touched me. And, I mean, I would’ve died before I gave in to those troopers, but this... I gave up my best friend. Gave up the one thing the General valued most. I didn’t have a choice. It wasn’t something I could fight, he just took it. I’ve never felt so helpless in my whole damn life.’

Rey squeezed his hands tighter.

*

Poe shut his eyes, breathing deeply. He wanted to bolt, or throw up - but he was here to fix this and she was the person who was going to fix this so he held on, tried to make his brain stop yelling in panic and hoped instead, hoped and held on, held on...

There was a pause. A long, awkward pause. He cracked open one eye.

‘Is this it, are you doing it, right now, some kind of Force thing? Yes? No? Do I - ?’

Rey sat back, frowning, plainly alarmed.

She was just holding his hands. That was all, she was just being kind and nice and how much of a walking disaster was he that he couldn’t even manage a little platonic handholding now, come _on_.

Why couldn’t everything just be blasters and flying and then going home to someplace warm without any weird crap happening inside anyone’s head? Couldn’t they just have wars with guns and ships and both sides having the same kind of guns and the same kind of ships and it just coming down to who was fastest on the draw and smartest in the skies? Wouldn’t that be fairer? Or living in peace, he could do that too, that sounded outstanding, when exactly was that going to happen?

‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’ He pulled his hands away, crossing his arms awkwardly. ‘I’m usually a very normal personable person who I am sure you would like and who doesn’t do - it’s just - this whole Force thing, I’m sorry, I’m not - ’

He rubbed his face. He was so tired. He’d gone to the medics and asked for something to help him sleep because if there was an alert he couldn’t be this guy, this mess, when they needed the actual Poe Dameron, Mr Flight Manual - but every time he woke up dry-mouthed and exhausted, BB-8 frantic and him on his knees halfway across the room like his sleeping self had been that desperate to get him the hell out of bed.

And now she was mortified, or appalled, or something, her face closing up like a flower at night.

‘I would never,’ she said quietly, tucking her knees up and hugging them close, retreating. ‘Even if I could - even if I knew how - I would never try to pry inside your head. Never unless it was asked for.’

He’d offended her. Poe nodded once, acknowledging, feeling impossibly worse. ‘I understand and I apologise. This whole thing - I wasn’t prepared for it. I’m a pilot. We do our fighting at arm’s length. I’m used to weapons I can see. I’m used to wounds I can see. And it’s not like I haven’t heard about the Force half my life but it being real and here and, frankly, crappy - it’s all new.’

*

No kidding.

It was what kept her awake even more than the memories, if she were honest. All the fights she now thought she could’ve won. The hollow ache she could’ve filled up with portions, all those portions, portions till she was full - full! - and then another six on top. The deals she’d have dared to turn down.

The day she came to Jakku - and the minds she could’ve changed - and they’d have taken her back, to her home, wherever that was, whoever they were.

Unless that was the Dark Side. That longing. That hungry despair. It didn’t feel like anything Light, anyway.

Only Luke wasn’t here to tell her.

Poe was watching her, apologetic, still a little bit hopeful.

‘You wanted my help. You want me to _heal_ you?’

His lip quirked up.

‘I want you to _teach_ me.’ He shook his head, as if it didn’t sound so crazy to him. ‘You found a way to protect what you knew and push him out. I might have to face him again. We all might. I’d sleep easier if I thought I could make a fight of it, at least.’

She still couldn’t believe it had worked, back on the Starkiller, persuading the guard. But it had felt as if believing made a difference. That couldn’t help Poe, though. She knew how fiercely he’d have wanted to protect BB-8; understood it on some base level. It wasn’t enough to want, or hope, or need to fight back. The Force wasn’t just _there_ , on your side, because you were right.

‘Have you talked to Leia?’

She hoped for a moment this entire conversation was all her idea - that perhaps he was right, and she could - she could heal him and teach him and all of them would be safe -

But Poe flinched. ‘Listen. There’s not one person in this galaxy I admire more than the General. But that’s her kid we’re talking about. She’s grieving. For them both. And I’d sooner never fly again than do her harm. I can’t put this on her.’

Rey’s forehead felt knotty. There was no time for that on Jakku either. People died or disappointed and you just - well. Maybe there was time for it.

And she knew what he meant; felt the same curious devotion already.

He shrugged, a little of the storybook sparkle back in his eye. ‘Sorry, but: you’re it.’

It prickled, and tingled, and made her feel ill with the responsibility - but he wasn’t wrong. Luke or no Luke. She was it.

And - it was nice.

She was wanted.

She was useful.

She mattered, and if she was not okay someone would notice, and ask, and help - and it was nice.

*

There was a flurry of beeps and whirrs outside. Then the door hummed open and standing there was Finn - wearing his jacket, his old perfect fitted-like-a-glove took-two-years-to-break-in jacket, now with a neat seam up the back - and BB-8, batting Finn’s calf like it was on fire and it was trying to put it out.

‘Hi!’ said Finn, bright as ever. ‘Hey! So I was trying to eat food like a person does at dinnertime, but the droid seemed to think that wasn’t OK and smacked my shin till I came here. Which hurts now, by the way.’

BB-8 beeped its protest.

‘I think so too,’ said Rey, nodding sincerely.

‘Astromech’s not even hard to learn, right?’ said Poe.

BB-8 whistled wearily.

‘Well, that’s true, but maybe politer not to say out loud, buddy.’ Poe winked meaningfully.

‘What!’ said Finn, jerking back.

‘Nothing,’ said Rey, smiling firmly. ‘Nothing at all. BB-8 just thinks we all should eat dinner, together. Right Poe?’

She stood, crooking her arm out.

Poe had faith in a few things: General Leia Organa, Jess Pava losing at Sabacc after her third drink, his hands on the controls of a ship.

BB-8.

And maybe this girl, with her simple smile; the way she crooked her other arm out to Finn too and he took it with the same smile, and she led them to eat some awful canteen dinner that she’d greet like a feast, and make them all laugh; and maybe he did need her to heal him, a little; and maybe she would, and maybe she wouldn’t know how, and maybe nothing could be fixed, really, not fixed, not mended, not here or now. But he could see their faces, still happy, and feel BB-8’s happy hum at his knee under the table, and he felt better. And better was good, today. Better was plenty.

 


End file.
